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Topics - Mike T

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51
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Inca Gold found?
« on: October 02, 2020, 11:43:38 PM »


While grabbing a few fruit from around a few haunts this morning I almost overlooked something interesting.

Not the golden soursop

Big passionfruit or Russell's rollinia




But an abiu with virtually no latex, yellow very tasty flesh and a spherical shape. Although small the tree had not been looked after. Gray that Whitman spoke fondly about, the ass kicking Z4 and Z2 and even E4 can still be found here from collections originally made in Colombia and other places over 40 years ago. The best selections from those collections actually became those elite types but inca gold that was mentioned by a few people of that era and those events was lost. I was told it was yellow fleshed and basically like that in the picture and it was forgotten who grew it and what became of it.

52
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Can you pick these fruit trees?
« on: October 02, 2020, 10:23:00 PM »
Well chums I went around this morning and looked on sidewalks and in a public park and saw some fruit trees which may challenge a few with identification. There are some easy ones also. I will let you in a few surprise finds in another thread, I reckon no one on the planet except maybe Oscar could get all these correct.

















53
There has been a persistent drought almost nationwide in Australia during 2019.Farmers are struggling, water is getting low in many places and people are losing more than just fruit trees in their gardens. It would be nice if 2020 bring widespread good falls.My best wishes go out to Australian growers and gardeners suffering with heat,drought and fires.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=drought&period=6month&area=nat
The crazy heatwaves have seen exceptionally high temperatures over millions of square kilometres and records are being set all over the place. A new average maximum temperature for the whole country for a single day was set at 41.9c yesterday. Tree crops have suffered very badly.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/finger-pointed-at-climate-change-as-heatwave-smashes-records/11817884
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/victoria-to-set-new-hot-weather-record/11815860
There have been catastrophic fire emergencies in most states with many farms in NSW burning. The extent of severe fire conditions has been more widespread than anything seen before.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/nsw-bushfire-catastrophic-fire-danger-forecast-for-saturday/11818896

In Australia we are seeing headlines about heat, drought and fires all the time lately and the above stories are just a few I grabbed quickly. People here are commenting on the extremes of weather experienced lately. I am wondering how many fruit growers have experienced extreme weather in recent times.It seems to be almost normal to have extreme weather.

54
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Vietnamese Jackfruit
« on: December 18, 2019, 03:30:41 AM »
Just had a piece of one of the best jackfruit I've ever tried.It has a luscious taste of lemon and pineapple has almost no latex and seems like a winner.

The seeds are small like peanuts and the fruit is small also.



55
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Juicy pearls in season again
« on: December 18, 2019, 03:16:25 AM »
Juicy Pearls are in fruit later than the starapples and are a great fruit.


56
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Kasturi and imbe in the park
« on: December 13, 2019, 07:54:52 PM »
A stroll in a local park yielded some kasturi and imbe and there were other fruit trees..










57
Tropical Fruit Discussion / J33 Jackfruit vs Amber Jack
« on: November 22, 2019, 03:47:10 AM »
I have tried a lot of jackfruit varieties and I know what I like.Very low latex,low rag and a great taste is what distinguishes the good from the great.


My J33 has been smashing it lately.Luscious low latex fruit of suburb quality.Fruit appreciating chums have raved about the samples I have offered them..How would J33 the pride of Malaysia fair in open competition with Amber? They are both low rag and low latex with a great flavour.Well sampled together by seasoned and novice campaigners all becomes clear.



Even a jackfruit green horn agreed that Amber shades J33 for taste by a feather but they taste different.Both could be cleaned freestyle without gloves as latex was low and J33 has edible rag.

Amber wins this showdown.

58
Tropical Fruit Discussion / A walk in the park
« on: November 08, 2019, 08:25:24 PM »
A park not far from my place has fruit trees and I see garcinas and durians as well as many more in flower but only really mangoes with fruit.












59
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Which wild Annonas have good fruit?
« on: November 07, 2019, 04:30:15 AM »
I think most of us have tried cultivated Annonas like mucosa, muricata, atemoya, cherimoya, squamosa and reticulata. Some of us have tried cultivated rarer species like ilama and soncoya and are positive. We have also argued about which are the best cultivated Annonas and routinely compared varieties.

With semi cultivated species like A,montana and scleriderma and I suppose even A.glabra the consensus seems to be that scleroderma can be pretty good but the other 2 not so much.

With such a great group of fruits not many of us can comment on the wild species and just how good quality their fruit is. Some examples are:

A.crassiflora seems to have a few fans but have any forum members really tried it and can give a good account?
A.salzmanii has positive reviews and if true might be a good one to grow for fruit.
A.cornifolia sometimes gets good reviews and may be worth growing for fruit.

My question is have forum members tried other wild Annona species and can report they have good fruit of reasonable size, flesh yield, taste or even tree productivity and can report they are well worth growing? Which ones are worth targeting by people more interested in trying novel tasty fruit rather than being a stamp collector of species?

60
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Couple of Syzygiums around my work building
« on: November 04, 2019, 02:56:47 AM »
There are a range of native trees planted around my work building just beginning to fruit.Malay apples are not native but there is one of them and the other is a S.cormiflorum




61
Everyone pretty well knows the zonal system and koppen climate classification. There are easy ways to figure how much climate cools with altitude or is moderated by oceans and even water temperatures of nearby seas. Just where the equator is, the  tropics lies and where the temperate zones are is pretty straight forward.
I do notice when reading threads that people talk about the sub tropics and warm temperate areas a fair bit and also refer to ultra tropicals and people seem to have different meanings for these areas so I thought Id just draw attention to it.

Subtropics is in the Temperate Zone and relates to the warmer half from about latitude 23 to 33.While koppen never used this term his modified classification includes humid subtropics as Cfa and Cwa climates. Warm temperate really means the same thing.

Ultratropical is really outside of the tropics or being even hotter than the tropics. I think most of the time on the forum people are referring to equatorial areas and plants from around about 5 degrees latitude either side of the equator.

62
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Some Mangosteens cant take the heat
« on: November 02, 2019, 11:22:36 PM »
Last November after a couple of days at around 44c my large leaf mangosteen was scorched losing half of its leaves.In spite of rain,humidity and irrigation it is starting to frazzled with modest temps of only 31c or 32c.Some mangosteen lines just dont like full sun on warm days.


63
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Everything is fruiting in spring
« on: November 02, 2019, 10:45:19 PM »
Everything is fruiting in spring and it seems like a good year.I look around the yard and there are jaboticabas eugenia,jackfruit soursop,canisters,sapodillas,abuis and much more.The time of plenty will soon be here when the rainy season begins.
 












64
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Everything is blooming in spring
« on: November 02, 2019, 10:38:44 PM »
All.my annonas and jaboticabas have flowers and so do the durian numerous eugenia,canistels,garcinias
And so much more.It will be a great season I hope.Everywhere I go around town there seems to be flowering fruit trees.














65
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Atemoya breeding the quest for the best
« on: November 01, 2019, 05:09:27 AM »
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-07-30/custard-apple-variety-research-a-long-road/11362214

Things are heating up with atemoya breeding in SE Queensland.New varieties have to be excellent to push out the likes of Paxton prolific.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-01-02/custard-apple-new-variety-struggles-to-meet-demand/9282268

It seems there is always another new great variety.



Some more general Annona and atemoya reporting

66
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Rusty's market for lunch
« on: October 31, 2019, 10:10:44 PM »
I just had a quick look around Rustys market and still the summer fruits have not quite arrived and everything is a bit pricey.










67
Tropical Fruit Discussion / plucking sapodillas
« on: September 16, 2018, 03:25:32 AM »
My sapodillas have been picked and plucked by lots of different friends in the last few weeks.People bring their own pickers and it is the thai plastic bucket such as the one in the photo from 10 minutes ago that I favour.

68
Citrus General Discussion / Citrus at the supermarket
« on: September 15, 2018, 09:20:52 PM »


I went to the supermarket this morning and noticed how the citrus is laid out. My local supermarket has around 15 to 25 varieties at any one time all laid out in neat rows. They change around varieties regularly. It is totally different from the haphazard nature of the local markets.It would be interesting to see what citrus is on offer in supermarkets in various places.

69
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Starapples in the park
« on: September 08, 2018, 10:15:56 PM »
Went fruit foraging with my brother this morning and spotted a few trees in public areas.


Found a few odds and ends but lots or Garcinia sp. and Durio sp. are in flower now.
A large purple type of starapple was found and they are very nice to eat.

It is what's inside that counts and these proved to be very good.


70
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Really Good Flavicarpa Passionfruit
« on: August 26, 2018, 01:51:39 AM »
The names given to Passiflora edulis flavicarpa locally are a bit unusual. They are given names from other places even if they have been selected crossed and bred for decades. Panamas are local types that come in yellow and red/purple forms and it has become a bi word for extra sweet types with almost no acidity. ones that are not yellow had some standard edulis crossed in at some stage in the past. Panamas are a group rather than a single variety these days such has been the crossing in back yards. African yellows are very sweet and musky. is a large and very sweet new variety bred from Panama red. Lilikoi seems as a term seems to be more and more referring to sour yellow flavicarpas not just Hawaiian in origin.
While edulis has had over 100 years of selection and breeding with several southern Australian types claimed to be worlds best the richness and complexity of taste and very low acidity seems to have many flavicarpas way ahead of any edulis in the desirability stakes.
This week I tried a red flavicarpa selection from Cooktown that was rather like a 3 sided pyramid in shape and I was advised that a private grower spent 30 years selecting and crossing to get this line. The one I sampled was fantastic being sweet and richly flavoured. My prized red flavicarpa is the offspring of the best tasting flavicarpa I could find after trying 100s of fruit.My standard panama pales by comparison.

Below is my one that I ate today and possibly is the last fruit of the crop.I just cant pick which is better but they do taste disinctively different and are the 2 best passionfruit I ever tried.


71
Tropical Fruit Discussion / What is this canistel like fruit?
« on: August 25, 2018, 01:53:22 AM »






The tree was quite clearly distinctive from its canistel neighbour being more compact, with narrower and furrowed leaves and larger flowers.The yellow fruit were very hard still with no sign of ripeness.
Any ideas?

72
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Mid Winter Jaboticaba Flowering
« on: July 07, 2018, 06:55:05 PM »
My jaboticabas flower and fruit more in Summer and those old enough to fruit seem to have several crops a year. Scarlet fruits almost continually but not heavily for each fruiting flush. I will show pics of 3 sabaras, a grimal and a red hybrid.


This sabara just has a light flowering


This sabara has a heavy flowering flush.


The flowers are festooned on the sabara here.



The grimal has buds for flowers.


The red hybrid has flowers and small fruit.

73
I thought I would share a few pics from a visit to a farm a couple of weeks ago.

Pedalai have nice fruit like a giant rambutan and are like a marang inside but the trees get big very big.

This young but fruiting pedalai is getting some width and is ready to rocket up. They get very tall and are hard to train.

Keledangs can be maintained as productive tress at 2-3m tall.

Here is a row on a trellis.

Juicy pearls are small trees and can be kept below 2m.

This hard pruned row is being trained and the first flushed already have flowers and fruit.

74
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Kepels and a walk in the park
« on: July 01, 2018, 06:50:09 AM »
I had 2 kepel trees that I planted too close to the house once and so were chopped down. They were more vigorous than expected and many still have the experience of them being slow growing. My ones just began fruiting when they volunteered for mulch patrol. Two large trees in a nearby park are fruiting and here is a closer look. They aren't too bad really. The taste is hard to describe a bit like fruity caramel and perhaps closest to sapodilla but denser, smoother and not as sweet. Big ones have 4 seeds and are a bit over 150g.


The flesh yield is perhaps around 35%.

The trees are very attractive with colourful new growth like the finest Theobromas.

75
Tropical Fruit Discussion / A very good Rollinia
« on: July 01, 2018, 06:25:47 AM »
Annona mucosa doesn't seem to be catching on in the marketplace or on the farm with Rollinia deliciosa being the identity of preference. Surely people don't prefer delicious over mucous. Anyway in Australia they have been popular for a long time and each farm that grows them seems to have a few preferred selections. Inside they vary a bit in how firm they are, how seedy they are, how mucousy they are and the taste varies a little as well. Some are a little sweeter at the same stage of ripeness and some have a more pronounced lemony tang. They vary quite dramatically on the outside ranging from completely smooth to like sputniks and the segment size vary a good deal as well.

The commercial selections are the firmer and better tasting types which are more productive on smaller trees. I sure have eaten plenty of them before and last week I tried one of the best with a rich lemony taste and firm flesh. This selection reaches 4kg and is very productive.


It may look green but this is the stage I like to eat them at.

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